“Redwood Trust looked to LSA Global as a executive coaching partner to help us explore innovative and scholarly approaches to promote employee engagement and sustain the unique culture we’ve built over the last decade. LSA helped us perpetuate coaching as a discipline across the organization by integrating our core values, goal setting and performance measurement metrics under an interactive coaching program. We appreciate LSA’s commitment to cutting-edge practices and keeping us in step with the progressive front of our rapidly changing workplace environment.”

Rosalyn Chan | VP HR |Redwood Trust, Inc.

“We engaged LSA for executive coaching to design and deliver a 6-month custom executive coaching program for a group of our key leaders. The focus of the coaching program was to help a core group of senior leaders to leverage previous investments in management training, to ensure the engagement and retention of key employees, and to push critical strategic initiatives forward. Even with the high expectations of our senior people, LSA has completely exceeded our expectations. I would recommend them to anyone looking to create and implement a custom coaching methodology using proven tools to drive true change.”

“LSA’s executive coach based his approach on understanding our business circumstances and strategy, as well as our leadership aspirations. The customized coaching covered all aspects of leadership, it was not simply a touchy-feely endeavor. In fact, the focus on clear business outcomes and real life circumstances challenged me to develop my thinking and actions related to leading the business. The sessions were a great way to focus my thinking, gain insight and reinvigorate my leadership and impact.”Janet Pagano | Managing Director |Ovid Winery

Unlike most abstract business processes, effective executive coaching engages with leaders in personal, practical and customized ways to get measurable results. LSA Global takes on coaching assignments selectively, where we believe the fit is right.

Second, people can change. Every leader can improve their performance and the performance of others. While no one can excel at everything, we do believe that anyone can improve in almost any field.

Finally, people have more success changing when they have a good coach. In business as in sports, people can accelerate their development when they receive encouragement, guidance, new ideas and concrete best practices from an experienced advisor.

These three long-held beliefs lead to our definition of executive coaching: a skilled professional using a disciplined process to provide observations, recommendations and tools to a business leader in order to improve that leader’s skills, capabilities and performance. While our coaching engagements often deal with personal development, they are always structured to have a direct impact on business performance.

We believe that executive coaching, when done well, is like holding up a mirror to the client. The coach reflects back to the client how they are carrying out their responsibilities. The coach helps the client to see how they act—and how those actions impact their performance and their relationships with others. The coach highlights observable behaviors, habits and patterns.

Framing is important, too: the coach needs to be skilled at putting issues into terms that make them understandable and addressable for the client. And coaching should be done in the right place at the right time and with the right style. Coaches must look for teachable moments, and must provide the feedback with the right balance of directness and empathy.

An effective coach also gives the client an opportunity to receive feedback from others in the organization. This is the primary aim of any 360-degree feedback tool—enabling the client to see how they are perceived by peers, subordinates and supervisors. Those additional perspectives enable coach and client to identify specific strengths and gaps.

Finally, for executive coaching to be effective, it’s not enough to hold up a mirror: above all, the client must be willing to look in the mirror and accept what they see at face value, with eyes wide open. The person being coached must want to be coached—and must commit to making changes based on the coaching. This openness to receive coaching is the litmus test for any engagement an executive coach undertakes.

Successful executive coaching engagements create leaders who:

Increase short- and long term performance

Build and lead high performing teams

Have the ability to self-diagnose and self-improve

We typically think about three primary types of executive coaching engagements unique to each client situation.

#1 Coaching for Performance
All executives, even the most successful and seasoned, either run into rough patches or want to raise the performance bar. Regardless of who seeks out the coaching support, the coach’s job is clear—help the individual identify the performance barriers, set measurable goals and develop strategies to address them. The work then is centered on trying new leadership behaviors while developing better processes and tools to drive results.

Typical Client Profile: An executive who is delivering sub-optimal results or who must create performance lift for themselves and their team

Coaching Objective: Improve performance

Critical First Step: Agree with the client and client’s supervisor on the area(s) for improvement and specific desired outcomes

#2 Coaching for Promotion
A promotion is typically a reward for a job well done. Excellence in the current position attests to a leader’s readiness to take on a new role with expanded responsibilities and bigger challenges. What may get overlooked in these career transitions, however, is the fact that new jobs often require leaders to develop new skills and behaviors—and to abandon old skills and behaviors that are counter-productive. The star sales executive promoted to business operator must learn to develop and work through others. The Regional VP promoted to COO must learn to be more politically savvy when moving from the regional office, where they are the highest-ranking executive, to corporate headquarters, where they are part of an executive team that they do not control. Sometimes leaders are able to anticipate these needs among their up-and-comers and provide targeted coaching in advance of a promotion.

Typical Client Profile: An executive who will soon take on, or has recently accepted, a new role in the organization

Coaching Objective: Prepare the client for the new role, with a focus on skills/behaviors to emphasize, skills/behaviors to leave behind and new skills/behaviors to acquire

Critical First Step: Inventory the client’s current skills and leadership behaviors and compare with those that will drive performance in the new role

#3 Coaching for Perspective
Executive leadership can be isolating. It is, in fact, “lonely at the top.” As executives reach the upper echelons of organizations, they tend to find it more and more difficult to obtain direct, unfiltered feedback from inside their organizations. Power truly does refract—and the mirrors held up by insiders usually present distorted images, like the mirrors in a circus funhouse. Faced with this situation, great leaders actively seek out additional advisors to provide unvarnished perspectives and a clearer sense of reality.

Typical Client Profile: A senior-level executive (often a CEO or other C-suite leader) who wants an additional perspective on the internal and external realities they are facing

Coaching Objective: Provide a sounding board for the client when they want to check new ideas and/or share an alternative set of viewpoints on what’s occurring inside and outside the organization

Critical First Step: Determine how insulated the client is from market and organizational realities

While the goals, roles and process associated with the three types of executive coaching are fairly distinct, they do not preclude “hybrid” approaches. Each client has unique needs and aspirations, so each executive coaching engagement must be adapted to the situation. Many Coaching for Performance engagements include elements of Coaching for Promotion; a Coaching for Promotion relationship may transition to Coaching for Perspective after the leader has “settled into” a new job.

Further, the coaching relationship may evolve as the leader progresses: a Coaching for Performance client may thrive in response to that engagement, undertake Coaching for Promotion the following year, and eventually seek help with Coaching for Perspective. No matter the particulars of the approach, we have found that all successful executive coaching engagements have a few common characteristics:

a clear set of objectives

a disciplined process that pushes the client to do the hard work that leads to meaningful changes

“We turned to LSA to help us custom design and deliver a leadership and management development curriculum to help drive performance. They have done an excellent job diagnosing the business situation, designing an approach that fits our culture, and delivering a first class solution.”

Sally Buchannan
VP Human Resources

We value our relationship with LSA Global. They focus on understanding our business situation and helping us succeed. LSA continues to deliver top quality consulting and leadership solutions that are highly customized for our business and culture. I would highly recommend LSA Global as a top quality resource to anyone looking to greatly improve the skills of their leadership, management, and project teams.

Bonnie S. Olson
Vice President of Human Resources

I continue to be impressed by the level of leadership development and management expertise and quality of advice and facilitation that LSA has to offer. What a smart and client-centric group of great people who really know how to help leaders attract, engage, develop and retain top talent.

Tracy Esposito
Director, HR Business Partner

We consistently receive positive feedback about the quality of the LSA Leadership Training Programs and LSA facilitators. We recognize and appreciate the hard work LSA always goes through to align to our unique culture and meet our specific requirements. Thank you for regularly going above and beyond to design solutions to meet our needs. Your support and dedication, both on the strategic and tactical side, have been outstanding!

Anna Meyer
Leadership Development

We signed up with LSA early on–as their 22nd Member! Since then, our organization’s learning needs have increased and decreased and increased again with the changing times. The beauty of the LSA business model is its flexibility…when we needed to supplement our own internal resources, we used LSA services knowing that we could depend on the outstanding quality of the leadership development and management training programs they provide.

Margie Bunting
HR Manager

LSA’s approach has certainly brought value to Knight Ridder Digital. They were laser focused on our goal and determined to meet all of our Leadership development program needs. Their flexibility and commitment were keys in making our program successful.

Dipik Rai
Director of Marketing

The customized leadership program was very practical and achieved our goals. LSA adapted very well to our group and the situation and helped us build trust and awareness of successful leadership styles. We look forward to the next steps.

Erik Okholm
Director of Software Development

It was a challenge to find a consultant with an approach to performance improvement that fit our unique culture and style. When we met with LSA we were surprised to discover their depth of expertise in the fields of motivation, developmental coaching and performance management and measurement.

Specifically, we were pleasantly surprised to find a company that could seamlessly integrate those three components without our folks feeling like the intervention was forced. They understood what we were trying to accomplish, helped us clarify our objectives, create a solid, refreshing approach that quickly got us moving and engaged people at all levels.

As they began to implement, I was thoroughly impressed with how they listened and made adaptations focused on our needs and business objectives. Overall, I couldn’t be happier that we found a partner in LSA.

Doug Hansen
President and Director

Having tripled in size and recently merged, LSA helped our executive team to increase our level of strategic alignment, solidify our new direction and push our agency forward. As we look to rapidly scale, the clear and actionable critical few strategic moves combined with how we differentiate ourselves to our top accounts and target clients has really set us on a great path to success. This is exactly what we needed to get to the next level.

Matt Britton
CEO

LSA helped us design and deliver a blended learning solution for our leaders to help drive our growth plans in a way that aligned with our specific culture and values. LSA understood our business, had deep expertise in the content areas, tailored the programs to fit our specific needs, and delivered great results. They constantly strive to deliver business impact and align their solutions with our business initiates, culture, and performance management systems. I highly recommend them to anyone looking to take their leaders to the next level.”

Beth A. Taylor
Vice President of Human Resources

You have become our premier change leadership strategic partner. Your expertise in the human side of change is unparalleled and enabled our company to successfully implement our ERP Solution.

Ted Ramlet
CIO & SVP

We reviewed the top Leadership Development offerings for one of our Senior Research Scientists and selected LSA’s 12 month Leadership Program based upon the value and systemic approach. The feedback on the program, approach, and results was phenomenal. While the other programs better known, they were more theoretical and did not compare in terms of practicality, quality, and results.

Stacey Porter
Senior Manager Learning and Development

Redwood Trust looked to LSA Global as a consulting partner to help us explore innovative and scholarly approaches to promote employee engagement and sustain the unique culture we’ve built over the last decade.

LSA helped us perpetuate coaching as a discipline across the organization by integrating our core values, goal setting and performance measurement metrics under an interactive coaching program.

We appreciate LSA’s commitment to cutting-edge practices and keeping us in step with the progressive front of our rapidly changing workplace environment.

Rosalyn Chan
Vice President, Human Resources

The customized leadership styles and coaching program was the best training that I have ever attended. The facilitators were phenomenal. They have a wealth of experience and knowledge coupled with compassionate and caring styles. I’d highly recommend this leadership training program to any manager, director, or executive looking for a life changing leadership program.

Shoaleh Ghaffari
Director, HR

LSA is an instrumental training outsourcing partner in helping us to build management capacity and strategically invest in our people. Their flexibility, depth, and breadth of expertise allows us to deliver top quality solutions that are directly tied to key business plans. Their ability to custom design, deliver, and evaluate our Management Curriculum has been excellent. They are true business partners and a pleasure to work with.

Margaret M. Mader
Vice President, Human Resources

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